BTN Travel Manager Of The Year
By SARAH WELT
Monday, August 2 1999
Monday, August 2 1999
Published on AllBusiness.com
<B> BTN Travel Manager Of The Year</B>
By Sarah Welt
<I>Minneapolis</I> - When Andrew Menkes, vice president of global travel management at Republic National Bank, accepted Business Travel News' 1999 Travel Manager of the Year award here last month, he dedicated the honor to his senior management team, as well as his travelers, travel staff and supplier "partners." Noting that without their support he never could have accomplished all he has, Menkes said, "if nothing else, I'd like to be known as the person who got rid of the word 'vendors.' Vendors sell fruit from a pushcart."
BTN selected Menkes for its 15th Travel Manager of the Year award because of his success with Republic's $6 million global travel program and in reshaping the industry as the chief proponent and ambassador for the Airlines Reporting Corp.'s Corporate Travel Department program. After securing ARC's first CTD accreditation for Republic, Menkes either invited in or showed the way to most of the companies that followed in his footsteps. "Andy gave us the confidence to move forward," said ARC's director of agency accreditation services Barry Lemley said.
BTN editor-in-chief David Meyer noted that Menkes, a 25-year industry veteran who worked as both an airline and agency executive and who only became a travel manager two and a half years ago when he joined Republic, also designed the company's globally accessible intranet site, developed a pre-trip reporting package and an expense reporting system with his IT team, and negotiated net fares with all his suppliers.
Since joining Republic from Rosenbluth International in February 1997, Menkes also has been instrumental in his company's global consolidation as well as the change of corporate card suppliers. His next challenge will come when the dust settles following the intended acquisition of Republic's parent company by HSBC Holdings, an international banking group.
Menkes began his job as a buyer by applying equal measures of aggressiveness and creativity, a prescription that had served him well on the sales side. "My first week at Republic," he said, "I called the CEO and asked if I could see him. I asked to see his wallet and had him hand over all his airline, hotel and car rental company frequent flyer and gold membership cards and made copies of them. And I made sure that I changed bronze into gold, gold into platinum, and platinum into titanium. I think that adds value to the travel management program."
It's that moxy that drove Menkes to design the bank's travel intranet site himself. The intranet includes 42 pages of travel content, including policy, net fare agreement information, hyperlinks to travel "partners" as well as access to tutorials. Travelers
By Sarah Welt
<I>Minneapolis</I> - When Andrew Menkes, vice president of global travel management at Republic National Bank, accepted Business Travel News' 1999 Travel Manager of the Year award here last month, he dedicated the honor to his senior management team, as well as his travelers, travel staff and supplier "partners." Noting that without their support he never could have accomplished all he has, Menkes said, "if nothing else, I'd like to be known as the person who got rid of the word 'vendors.' Vendors sell fruit from a pushcart."
BTN selected Menkes for its 15th Travel Manager of the Year award because of his success with Republic's $6 million global travel program and in reshaping the industry as the chief proponent and ambassador for the Airlines Reporting Corp.'s Corporate Travel Department program. After securing ARC's first CTD accreditation for Republic, Menkes either invited in or showed the way to most of the companies that followed in his footsteps. "Andy gave us the confidence to move forward," said ARC's director of agency accreditation services Barry Lemley said.
BTN editor-in-chief David Meyer noted that Menkes, a 25-year industry veteran who worked as both an airline and agency executive and who only became a travel manager two and a half years ago when he joined Republic, also designed the company's globally accessible intranet site, developed a pre-trip reporting package and an expense reporting system with his IT team, and negotiated net fares with all his suppliers.
Since joining Republic from Rosenbluth International in February 1997, Menkes also has been instrumental in his company's global consolidation as well as the change of corporate card suppliers. His next challenge will come when the dust settles following the intended acquisition of Republic's parent company by HSBC Holdings, an international banking group.
Menkes began his job as a buyer by applying equal measures of aggressiveness and creativity, a prescription that had served him well on the sales side. "My first week at Republic," he said, "I called the CEO and asked if I could see him. I asked to see his wallet and had him hand over all his airline, hotel and car rental company frequent flyer and gold membership cards and made copies of them. And I made sure that I changed bronze into gold, gold into platinum, and platinum into titanium. I think that adds value to the travel management program."
It's that moxy that drove Menkes to design the bank's travel intranet site himself. The intranet includes 42 pages of travel content, including policy, net fare agreement information, hyperlinks to travel "partners" as well as access to tutorials. Travelers